Posts in this series are now listed at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/p/recovering-from-corporate-life.html.
At a recent routine company-wide address, the new (acting - and the first female here in that role) CEO of the the company I work at mentioned some help I’d given her when she was first working here, quite some years ago.
I had forgotten about it - to me, it was just one of those many situations I had tried to do what I could, even if I had no direct answer. I’d ignored any fear of liability, failure, or other consequences and tried to use what connections and longer knowledge of company history that I had to see if I could either find an answer, or direct her to someone who could answer the question.
Nothing special, in my view ... but it is in a era when people are so afraid of doing anything that they lack the decency to even try to be humanely human even with colleagues in the workplace.
It’s no wonder we struggle with larger issues like basic decency and hospitality to asylum seekers, genuine non-malicious social security, and avoiding rabidly bigotted fascism when we fail so spectacularly in smaller everyday issues such as this.
And the failures are actually on both sides: employer, as well as employee.
These comments reflected other comments by another manager (lower down the food chain, but much above my station), who actually stated “I don’t think you know how significant you are to us”.
No, clearly I didn’t.
That’s not my fault - it’s yours.
“Your”- in the broader systemic sense, not any one or two or few individuals, groups or companies ... “your” in the sense of the patriarchal, at times toxic-masculinity-based economic systems, which is built on arrogant self-promotion at all costs ... even if you don’t deserve it, even if that conflicts violently with my personal values and notions of what I am and should be.
“Your” in the sense of that patriarchal, at times toxic-masculinity-based management system which assumes everyone will have such an over-inflated sense of self-importance that they don’t need any encouragement or positive feedback.
And “your” in the sense of the patriarchal, at times toxic-masculinity-based society which seeks to minimise, belittle, and downplay anything done by people who aren’t white cishet males ...
I’ve copped discrimination as a female, as someone who is trans, and as someone who doesn’t mindlessly conform to the neoliberal agenda - and the extent of that has been shown by me losing 15% in salary in the months after transition, and other pay discrimination resulting in a decent manager a decade or so later giving me a 30% pay rise ... (the last few years have been reasonable with regard to comparative pay).
On other matters:
- I find I have a strong sense of revulsion at trying to get back into any detailed technical work - this goes back to something I had written about earlier, where I was almost able to stop and then had that snatched away;
- the mechanics of getting super companies to hand over dosh is challenging;
- the quality of my sleep continues to improve;
- I have gladly ended a range of other commitments (including ending - or perhaps pausing - the very time and energy consuming [draining!] weekly news posts) so I can have a slower, gentler life; and
- I actually feel like doing some socialising now - for the first time in years.
Blessed be.
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Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.
